[X Newbies] Saving Mail and Other Program Data

[Anne Keller-Smith]

On Tuesday, April 20, 2004, at 01:19  PM, Charles Martin wrote:
> The structure of UNIX is, to be fair, more complicated than that of OS 
> 9, and so it's not a simple drag-and-drop operation to back up your 
> stuff if you want a complete bootable "turnkey" backup. However, tools 
> exist to make backups complete and easy to do, so the "complication" 
> of symbiotic links and other UNIX-y stuff does not need to concern 
> most users. By far, the easiest and most trouble-free way to make 
> backups of your data is to use a separate (preferably external) hard 
> drive and a cloning program such as Carbon Copy Cloner. Your backup is 
> then complete and bootable and you can resume working almost 
> seamlessly in the event of a main HD problem.

I am using a Maxtor external drive but Dantz Retrospect takes too long 
to back up the entire hard drive every couple days.
2-3 hours.

Therefore, while I back up documents quite frequently, I do an entire 
hard drive backup only every other month or after a new
program install, etc.

I do need to back up mail with the same frequency as the other 
documents.

>
> It is a further good idea to burn CDs/DVDs of your most irreplaceable 
> data (digital family photos, home movies, your will etc) and keep a 
> copy completely off-site from your computer to protect that data in 
> case of fire or other disaster.

I do this once a month. Great idea.

Thanks for the input.